Introducing the SmartTripod

This video is my submission to Microsoft's Robotics@Home Competition. I developed a robotic video tripod which I call the "SmartTripod". It runs on a Parallax Eddie robot and Microsoft's Robotics Developer Studio (RDS). There is another video on my channel which is kind of an "appendix" to this one--it contains a cooking video I created to demonstrate the capabiliites of the SmartTripod. You can find that video here: http://youtu.be/rhmcqUx4PHI

UPDATE:
A number of people have asked about the parts list for the SmartTripod so they can build their own. I've posted it here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/c... Feel free to reach out to me if you're interested in building your own and using the SmartTripod software.

LINKS:
The SmartTripod Google+ page: http://gplus.to/eddierobot
My Google+ page: http://gplus.to/artwait
Parallax Eddie Robot: http://www.parallax.com/eddie
Microsoft Robotics: http://www.microsoft.com/robotics
Phidgets: http://http://www.phidgets.com
RDS Service for Phidgets: http://mrdsphidgets.codeplex.com/
ServoCity: http://http://www.servocity.com

CREDITS:
This video contains images courtesy of:
http://www.youtube.com/user/foodwishes
http://www.youtube.com/user/stevinmarin
http://www.youtube.com/user/growingyo...

Dolly photograph by Schlaier (Own work) CC-BY-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b...)], via Wikimedia Commons: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fil...

Music licensed from http://www.stockmusic.net

• Category

  Howto & Style

[Camp Peavy]

Great presentation last night, Arthur!

[smarttripod]

Thanks, Camp! It was a lot of fun. You guys were (relatively) easy on me! :-)

[greenscreenproducer]

Brilliant! - very well done!

[smarttripod]

@greenscreenproducer Thanks! I'm intending to publish build instructions soon if you'd like to make your own (although life keeps slowing me down!).

[jeremypmoss]

I gotta say, it takes a lot to impress me these days...maybe I'm getting cynical...but this is very impressive! You've put a lot of thought into the architecture and implementation. Well done!

[smarttripod]

@jeremypmoss Thanks for the nice comment!

[Juan Ceballos]

amazing! I would totaly buy one of these

[seklerek]

wow dude, this is super cool, where can i buy it? only one thing you could improve - the smoothness. smth like bigger and softer wheels and bigger platform and also smoother camera movement would be cool, because when you showed us the cue zones the camera was jumping very quickly and unnaturally. That's still a super cool project, though!

[hairypotty342]

SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY

[YeeahHypoxia]

Well, I'm a fan. Well done.

[MsGeek703]

CAMBOT!! Beamed down from the Satellite of Love!

Seriously  though...this is super cool.

[juan david Suero]

you are a genious!!!!!!!!!!

[FredRoseFilms]

I don't know about how many Youtubers would need this depending on cost factors but I could see small budget films implementing this for steadicam shots as well as the mentioned teaching capabilities. Best of luck!

[seanthepianokid]

Could you put the coding for the smart tripods robotics in the link so i can try them out on a game program, if you can, thanks.